Island



(No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet 1.

P. J. DRAKE. LOOOMOTIVE SPARK ARRESTER.

No. 433,647. Patented Aug. 5, 1890 2 Sheets-Sheet 2.

(No Model.)

F J DRAKE LOGOMOTIVB SPARK ARRESTER.

No. 433,647. Patented Aug. 5, 1890.

MIA/5555 25% @Zifi PETERS 5a., vncnmumo UNITED STAT S PATENT OFFICE.

FRANKLYN J. DRAKE, OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND.

LOCOMOTIVE SPARK-ARRESTER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 433,647, dated August 5, 1890. Application filed December 24, 1889. Serial No. 334,864. (No model.)

drawings, forming part of this specification.

Numerous devices have heretofore been invented, constructed, and used to arrest the sparks of locomotives. Some of these have been partially successful; but none of them have in practice retained all thesparks and cinders. The danger to property near the line of a railroad of being set on fire by the sparks from the locomotive still exists, and the passengers are still subjected to danger and annoyance from flying cinders and sparks.

After careful investigation and numerous tests I find that the combustion in a locomotive fire-box can be regulated and made practically efficient under all the varying conditions by the use of live steam in a vacuum tube, by which artificial or forced draft is produced and the products of combustion are removed. I find that a continuous partial vacuum in such tube will supply all the air required for the most rapid possible combustion, and that with such a continuous partial vacuum few sparks or cinders are carried into the vacuum-tube.

The object of this invention is to prevent the discharge of sparks and cinders from the locomotive.

Another object of this invention is to more perfectly control the combustion in the locomotive fire-box.

Another object of the invention is to economize the fuel.

And still another object of the invention is to relieve the back-pressure on the locomotive-engine.

To this purpose my invention consists in the peculiar and novel construction and arrangement, in connection with a locomotivechimney, of a draft-tube and steam-jets con- 'structed to draw the air into the fire-box and the products of combustion through the tubes of the boiler and the draft-tube to extinguish all sparks and discharge the products of combustion near the rails, as will be more fully set forth hereinafter.

Figure l is a side view of a locomotive and tender provided with my improved exhaust or vacuum tube. Fig. 2 isavertical sectionalview through the center of the forward end of the 10- comotive-boiler, the chimney, and the exhaust or vacuum tube. Fig. 3 is an end view of the 10- comotive-boiler, showing the cab, the exhaust or vacuum tube, and the connection from the boiler to the jets in the vacuum-tube. Fig. 4 is a top view of the locomotive and tender, showing the vacuum-tube in connection with the chimney and extending to the rear of the tender. Fig. 5 is a sectional View of the balland-socket joint in the vacuumpipe. Fig. 6 is a sectional view of the vacuum-pipe, showing the connection of the steam-jet. Fig. 7 is a sectional View of the discharge end of the vacuum-tube.

Similar numbers of reference indicate corresponding parts throughout.

The construction of the locomotive-boiler, with the grate in the lower partof the firebox, the furnace below the barrel, the com bust-ion-chamber with or without the fire-arch, or divided from the furnace by awater-arch, and the barrel filled with tubes, through which the heat and products of combustion pass, is so well known that any further description or drawings are deemed unnecessary, as the present invention, although affecting the combustion of the fuel in the furnace, does not relate to nor is it limited by the form or 0011- struction of. the fire-box end of the locomotive-boiler.

Referring now to Fig. 2, the number 10 indicates the smoke-box end of the tubes in the barrel of the locomotive-boiler; 11, the extension of the shell of the boiler-barrel; 12, the end cover of the extension; 13, the steam-pipe connecting one of the engines with the steamsupply main, and 14 the exhaust-pipe of one of the engines. The exhaust-pipe 14, as shown in Fig. 2, is provided with a wide trumpetshaped nozzle or end in place of the contracted nozzle heretofore used on locomotives. The object of the enlarged nozzle is to relieve the engine of the back-pressure caused by the contracted nozzle and to allow the steam to be discharged without causing the intermittent violent pulsation of the draft.

15 indicates the horizontal partition in the extension now used to deflect the products of combustion,-the forward portion of which usually consists of wire screens, through which the smoke passes to the chimney. The chimney is provided near its upper end with the centrally -pivoted butterflyvalve 17. The vacuum-tube 18 is connected with the chimney bya curved gradually-enlarging uptakeconnection, whichat the junction with the chlmney is of as large or larger internal area as is the chimney. This curved oval uptake gradually contracts to form the round vacuum-pipe 18, which, before it reaches the steam-dome of the locomotive, branches into the two pipes or tubes 19, as is shown in Figs. 3 and 4. The tubes 19 are firmly supported 011 the cab of the locomotive in the brackets 20, and immediately beyond the cab of the locomotive the spherical or ball-and-socket coupling 21 (shown enlarged in Fig. 5) connects the tubes 19 extending over the cab with the tubes 19 extending over the tender to the elbow 22, to the lower end of which another ball-and-socket coupling is secured, from which the tubes 19 extend downward to the socket 23, firmly secured to the tender. The socket 23 is provided with the spiral spring 24, which bears on the flange 25, which flange is secured to the tube 19, giving to the tube a yielding flexible support.

The curved trumpet-shaped discharge-tube 26 is provided with the annular projection 27, by which it is supported in the socket 23, so that it maybe turnedinto such position as experience will prove to be best suited to facilitate the discharge of thesmoke and gases from the locomotive under the various conditions of speed and wind. With the spherical or ball-and socket coupling 21 placed in the bifurcated tube on the horizontal and also in the vertical portions of the tube the tube can adjust itself freely to the ever-varying independent oscillations and changes in level as well as direction of the locomotive and tender. The tubes 19 are strengthened by the rings 28 to resist the atmospheric pressure and prevent the collapsing of the tubes.

. In the tube 18 and in the bifurcated tubes 19 a partial, vacuum is created by discharging a continuous jet of live steam from a series of nozzles, one of which is shown in Fig. 6, in which the nozzle 29 is shown connected with the steam-pipe 30. In Figs. 1, 3, and 4 the positions of these steam-nozzles are indidicated in broken lines.

Referring to Fig. 8, the steam-pipe 30, extending through the locomotive-boiler into the steam-dome, has its open end located as highas convenient in the steam-dome, so that only dry steam will enter the said steam-pipe. The valve 31 controls the flow of steam through the pipe' 80, which supplies steam to all the jet-nozzles 29 and connects with all, as is shown in Figs. 1 and 4. Two jets are placed near the junction of the tubes 19 with the tube 18, two near the end of the cab, two

over the tender, and two near the end of the elbow 22.

The valve or damper 17 in the chimney is connected by rods and bell-crank levers with the cab, so that the same may be opened and closed by the engineer. The discharge-pipes 26 are connected each by the rod 32 with the lever 33 on the lower end of the rod 32, on the upper end of which the hand-wheel 34 is secured, so that the discharge-pipe can be turned by the engineer in the direction most effective under the existing conditions of speed or wind.

Theoperation of a locomotive constructed in the manner above described is as follows: The locomotive being fired, with steam up, ready to draw the train from the station, the engineer opens the valve 31 sufficientto produce induced air-currents in the tube 18 and the bifurcated tube 19. He now starts the engine and closes the valve or damper 17, so that the products of combustion and steam pass through the tube 18 and are conducted by the tubes 19 to the end of the tender. The engineer now regulates the valve 31 so that the draft is sufficient to secure the rate of combustion required to maintain the steampressure, to increase the steam-pressure if he is approaching an upgrade, or to allow the pressure to gradually fall if he is about to approach a long downgrade or long stop. The engineer will have complete control of the combustion, as he has the complete control of the steam-jets by which the air is drawn through the fuel on the grate. The intermittent impulses by which the incandescent fuel was drawn from the fire through the fines and ejected from the chimney, caused by the intermittent discharge of the steam from the engine through the contracted nozzles, are avoided by the enlarging of the outlets of the exhaust-pipes, and very little incandescent fuel is carried from the furnace into the tube 18 by the continuous draft, and what little is so carried into the tube 18 is surrounded by the steam from the exhaust-nozzles and the steam-jets in the tubes, so that it will be at once extinguished and discharged with the products of combustion from the discharge ends 26 at the rear of the tender.

As the locomotive and tender are practically one and are never separated when in use, this arrangement does not interfere with the making or breaking of the train. The indraft under a train running at the high rate of speed used on most passenger-trains draws the products of combustion under the train and does not distribute the products of combustion and the ashes or cinders over the train when once delivered on the track, as is the Having thus described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent 1. The combination, with the smoke-box of a locomotive and the chimney, of a tube con nected with the chimney, provided with ejector-nozzles connected With the steam-space of the boiler by a pipe having a valve for regulating the discharge of steam into the tube, constructed to draw the products of combustion from the smoke-bore and discharge the same near the road-bed, as described.

2. The combination, with the smoke-box of a locomotive and the chimney, of a tube connecti n g with the chimney and extending rearward, said tube being provided with steaminjector nozzles connected by a steam-pipe with the steam-space of the boiler, and a valve constructed to close the chimney above the inlet to the reanward-extending tube, constructed to draw the products of combustion through the tube and discharge the same near the road-bed, as described.

3. The. combination, with the smoke-box and the chimney of a locomotive-boiler and the exhaust-pipes of the engine, of a tube connected with the chimney, extending rearward, bifurcated, and terminating in outlets placed near the road-bed,a valve in the chimney above the connection with the rearwardextending tube, a steam-pipe extending from the steam-space of the boiler to a regulatorvalve, and a steam-pipe extending from the said regulator-valve to the ejector-nozzles placed into the rearward-extending tube, constructed to draw the products of combustion through the tube and discharge the same near the roadbed, as described.

4-. The combination, with the fire-box, the

barrel, the heating-tubes, and the smoke-box of the locomotive-boiler, of a rearward-extending bifurcated tube having outlets near the road-bed forming a continuous passage from the smoke-box to the outlets, constructed to discharge the products of combustion near the road-bed, as described.

5. The combination, With a locomotive and Witnesses:

M. F. BLIGH, J. A. MILLER, J r. 

